THE FEDERAL TARIFF.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13997, 2 September 1907, Page 5

THE FEDERAL TARIFF.

ENGLISH PRESS OPINION'S,

Press Association—By Telegraph— Copyright.

LONDON, August 30.

The Daily Telegraph (Opposition and tariff reform), in its chief leading article, makes a. st-renuous protest against the ignorance and fanaticism wherewith the Australian tariff is discussed iii the Ministerial press here, at the risk of causing it to be withdrawn. The paper 6»ys that the new tariff's proffered preference was a substantial boon of immediate value and enormous potential advantage. It eontends that "Australia lmd forewarned us of her intention to foster her own manufactures. She was absolutely entitled to foster them, and was under no fiscal obligation to us. Sho gets the same treatment as foreign countries here. It is obvious anil inevitable that some lines of British trade will be injured, but it was unwise and unbusinesslike to throw the helvo after the hatchet, and to 6ay that because wo cannot have everything wo will throw away all. The question is whether the inevitable shall be unmitigated, as in the foreign duties, or mitigated, as in the Canadian market. Considering that Australia's purchase per head was twice that- of Canada's, and that- she 19 England's best market, her offer of preference is as valuable as Canada's." The writer concludes by hoping that cool counsel will prevail, and assures Mr Deakin that the matter is better understood than the radical press suggests. Despite Mr Asquith's and Mr Lloyd-George's appreciation of the principle of preference, as expressed by them at the Imperial Conference, the article adds that Mr Lloyd-George's .judicious intervention might still save preference in Australia. The Morning I'ost (Opposition and tariff reform), in an energetic article on the value of Australian preference, condemns t-hc illogical position held by those who have been expatiating about the expansion of British trade in foreign countries, where the duties of manufactures average 50 per cent., while representing that colonial duties of about half that rate constitute an insurmountable prohibition,